A few days after the skirmish, Miloš found Marija sitting on a log outside, where the sun provided sufficient light for mending the frayed bottom edge of her apron. She was shortening it and repairing a torn tie. “Hello, Marija.”
She glanced at him before returning her gaze to the needle. “Hello, Miloš.”
“I was thinking, Marija, that we should get married.”
“We can’t get married.”
“Why not?”
Marija was quiet for a long time. As Miloš watched, he realized sewing wasn’t one of her talents. The stitches were uneven, and she pricked her finger twice. She tied off the end of the apron’s hem and broke the thread with her teeth. “Why would you want to marry me anyway?”
Miloš sat next to her. She turned to meet his eyes and moved a few inches away, but at least she looked at him. “I want to marry you because I’ve seen how strong you are in adversity. You’re never unkind to anyone, and you work hard. You know what’s right, and you cling to it. You know what’s wrong, and you reject it. I want to marry you because you’re beautiful, and when you smile, you’re more than beautiful.”
Marija looked down. “And why should I want to marry you?”
“I would be a good husband, Marija. I would never hit you or insult you. I would work hard to make sure you had enough to eat, and I would protect you from anyone who wanted to harm you. I think I could make you smile more often and maybe even laugh. And I love you, Marija. When you do get married, you want it to be to someone who loves you, don’t you?”
Marija didn’t answer. She stood, even though she hadn’t yet repaired the torn apron tie.
“Let me finish your mending.” Miloš took the end of the apron and reached for the needle. She backed away, pulling the apron with her. “Please, Marija.”
“Have you ever sewn before?”
“Phst. Lots of times.” He didn’t clarify that his sewing experience was with stitching torn skin rather than torn fabric. He stood and reached again for her needle. She let him take it and let him pull the apron from her hand. She walked away, but Miloš caught her glancing back at him.
* * *
Dearest Genevieve,
I wish I could see you smile again. Everyone here is focused on survival, but making it through one more day doesn’t bring us much joy, just the knowledge that we’re still here and the war still continues and the snow is still falling, trapping us in the mountains until springtime. I miss you so much it hurts. And I worry about you. I hate that I left when you said you needed me. I thought I’d be back in a few days, but now it’s been months. I hope you’ll forgive me and that when I get back, you’ll love me as much as I love you.
Love,
Peter
* * *
Peter woke to the sound of something hitting the wood floor.
“Any luck?” Moretti asked.
“No,” Krzysztof said. “Maybe if the plane wasn’t so damaged.”
Peter opened his eyes. Krzysztof sat at the table, working on the radio, but he paused long enough to retrieve a screw that had fallen to the floor. Krzysztof had a habit of taking the radio apart whenever he had a new part, whenever he was bored, and whenever anyone mentioned Iuliana or Anatolie. All the men were hoping for a lucky break—like a repaired radio. The news Brajović and his men had brought from Serbia wasn’t good. Mihailovic and his Chetniks had been attacked by Partisan, German, and Soviet troops. The Chetnik survivors had fled west, leaving behind the airfields they’d used to evacuate Americans.
A month ago, Peter had told Moretti and Krzysztof they should go with Bogdan to one of the fields in Serbia, where, if the rumors were correct, American OSS men with radios could arrange a flight to Italy. But they’d refused to leave Peter and Jamie behind. Peter had suggested they carry Jamie with them, but they hadn’t liked that plan either. Now those options were gone.
Sometimes Peter wondered if they’d be better off seeking out the Partisans. Peter didn’t like Communist ideology, but the Partisans had more contacts with the British and Americans—perhaps they could arrange something the written-off Chetniks couldn’t.
It was ungrateful of him to think like that. The little village was full of starving people, but they always made sure their foreign guests were fed. And yet, sometimes Peter wasn’t sure what to think of the Chetniks. They were kind to him and his men but brutal when it came to their Yugoslav rivals. The day before, the Chetniks had executed their wounded Ustaše POW. It was difficult enough to feed everyone without an extra prisoner, but there had been no trial, no mercy, no remorse. The news had left Peter with a cold sense of foreboding.
He pushed himself into a sitting position. He was still weak but better than he’d been the past month. Jamie brought a map over and spread it next to Peter. He shifted his crutches into one hand and pointed to where Mihailovic’s men were headed, into northwest Bosnia.
“We could try to go with them, but Bogdan said some of the men have typhus. Did you know seventy thousand people in Serbia died of typhus during the last big war?”
Peter hadn’t known, but even if he got over his pneumonia, he doubted he’d survive typhus. “I think we better try for the Dalmatian Coast.”
“You do realize it is winter and we would have to cross the Dinaric Alps to get there? Maybe we could get some skis. I might manage skiing, even with a busted leg.”
“How is your leg?”
“How are your lungs?”
Peter studied the map. “Not up to mountain climbing.”
“Nor is my leg.”
“Well, if we can’t go out on skis, that leaves us the sky.” Peter glanced at the radio, wondering where they could get a new one or parts to fix the old one. He was starting to feel tired and depressed again when Miloš came through the door.
He walked over to Peter. “Feeling better?”
“A little.”
He placed a hand on Peter’s forehead. Peter tried not to scowl. He hated being sick, and he was beginning to hate this Serbian village in the mountains. He knew Miloš was trying to help, but Peter always felt trapped while in hospitals. The little stone cottage wasn’t a hospital, but he’d been there for three months. It felt like a prison.
“No fever.” Miloš smiled. “The pukovnik and his men are drilling if any of you would like to watch. It would get you out of the house. Moretti and Krzysztof can even participate if they like.”
Peter was embarrassed to admit he might not be able to walk by himself, but Moretti and Krzysztof practically carried him outside while Miloš gathered everyone’s blankets and a rickety wooden chair. It was cold, but the fresh mountain air made Peter smile. He inhaled deeply, which sent him into a coughing fit.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Miloš said.
“No, let me stay out for a while. Please?”
Miloš hesitated before agreeing. “Twenty minutes.” He called out to one of the Serbian soldiers, who disappeared into a cottage, then reappeared with a chair for Jamie.
Pukovnik Brajović came over to join them, letting Bogdan lead the training. “They are good men, no?”
Stoyan Brajović looked like an uneducated peasant, with a long beard and equally long hair—like many of the Chetniks, he’d vowed not to cut his hair until the king returned and the country was free. Brajović’s uniform was old and patched in several places, and he wore a Cossack-style fur hat on his head. Peter wondered where he’d learned such competent English.
“Yes, they seem to have good morale, considering,” Peter said.
“Imagine what they could do with a good stash of American supplies.”
Peter wasn’t sure what to say. The Allies were giving plenty of supplies to Tito’s men, and Bari was full of Partisan liaison officers. But no such support came to the Chetniks, even though Peter had witnessed them fighting Nazis. “I remember the radio reports when I was in Africa and Sicily. They said General Mihailovic was a hero. Then they stopped talking about him.”
Brajović nodded. “We began our war eagerly enough. But German reprisals made us think twice as we continued. I suppose we’re fighting to get our territory back, rid of Nazis, but more than that, we’re fighting for the people. If we had kept fighting the way we started, the Germans would have killed off the entire population. In October of ’41, some guerrillas killed or wounded a few dozen German soldiers near Kragujevac. The Nazis lined up most of the Serb men from the town and shot them. The boys as well. And the population of Kragujevac wasn’t big enough for them, so they brought in fifteen hundred people from Kraljevo and killed them too. They massacred thousands, plus one German soldier who refused to fire his weapon.
“So we waited until the time was right for a massive uprising, one that could be successful before reprisals were enacted. We became more sneaky, made our sabotage hard to detect. But that made it easy for the Partisans to take credit for everything we did. And the Partisans aren’t fighting for the people; they’re fighting for an ideology. If a village full of religious peasants is destroyed, what do they care?”
Out in the town square, Moretti took the lead for drills. Peter watched them, thinking of the pukovnik’s words and of row upon row of innocent villagers being mowed down by machine guns.
“To be fair to the Germans, the Ustaše have been much worse,” Brajović said. “In the area that became Fascist Croatia, the massacres were designed to convert a third of the Orthodox Serbs, drive a third of them away, and kill the remainder.”
Brajović turned to Miloš and said something in Serbo-Croat. Miloš hesitated and said something back, seeming to disagree with him, but Brajović insisted, and Miloš left.
* * *
Miloš was used to the pukovnik’s speeches. Brajović would talk of the five hundred years when the Serbs had been slaves under Ottoman rule. He would tell Jamie and Peter of how the Serbs had saved European Christianity from extinction and of how much they’d suffered during the last war.
Miloš agreed with Brajović, for the most part. He also admired him and would never disobey an order. Yet Brajović and men like him worried Miloš because they never forgave their enemies, never moved away from the past.
Miloš remembered frequent conversations with Croatian students while he attended Belgrade University. When he asked them why they didn’t support the government, they answered that it was composed almost entirely of Serbs. Miloš would explain that, of course, it was made mostly of Serbs because the Croats had fought with the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the last war, so they couldn’t be trusted in government until they proved their loyalty. His Croatian friends would explain they had little loyalty to a government that didn’t include them. They might support a government that included more Croats. But the Serbs didn’t trust the Croats. And so it would go, on and on until they had to head for class.
He’d understood some of the resentment his Croatian friends harbored. But he’d been shocked by the level of violence and hatred that had erupted when Ante Pavelić was made head of the Independent State of Croatia, with control over huge swaths of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the village where Miloš and Marija had grown up. Hitler’s Nazi troops had created a deadly war. Pavelić’s Ustaše troops had created a terrifying hell.
Miloš had always believed Yugoslavia—a union of the southern Slavs—could exist as a free, peaceful kingdom. But the war was proving him wrong. Serbs like Pukovnik Brajović would never forgive or trust the Croatians. And Croatians like his classmates or the men who followed Pavelić would never see a Serbian king as their king and would always resent having to share power with the Serbs. Communism wouldn’t change that. The return of King Peter wouldn’t change that. The end of the war wouldn’t change that. Miloš wasn’t sure if anything ever could change mistrust and hatred into brotherhood.
Marija was in her aunt and uncle’s cottage, cleaning the fireplace. “Your uncle would like to see you,” Miloš said.
Marija finished the hearthstone. “Do you know why?”
“He wants to ask you a question.” Miloš could even guess what Brajović would ask, and he owed Marija a warning. “He wants to ask about when the Ustaše came to our village, I think.”
Her brush froze midair. Miloš didn’t want to seem like a guard tasked with bringing a prisoner to trial, so he left. Marija could come if she wanted. She always obeyed her uncle, so he expected she’d soon join him, but he wanted it to be by choice, not by coercion. He walked slowly, hoping Brajovič would move to another subject by the time he returned, but as he approached and heard the pukovnik’s deep, resonant voice, he could guess his friend was only getting started.
Brajović paused long enough to nod at Miloš when he returned. Jamie and Peter listened, but Miloš wasn’t sure if it they were interested or just being polite. Marija came hesitantly only a minute behind him but hung back as if hoping her uncle wouldn’t notice her.
“Marija, tell these men what happened to your village,” Brajović said.
Marija closed her eyes for a few moments. Then she squared her shoulders and glanced at the men before staring beyond them, focusing on something in the distance—or perhaps on something in the past. “It was summer, three and a half years ago. A group of Ustaše came, maybe fifty of them. They brought all the Serbs to the town square, and the Catholic priest offered to baptize us so we could go to heaven when we were dead. Then they took the men away in groups and shot them. They took the women and children to a cliff and pushed them over the edge.”
“They had no warning,” Brajović said. “And even if they had, the Germans had sealed the border and cut off the escape route.”
Everyone was quiet.
“Were you the only survivor?” Jamie asked.
“I’m the only Serb survivor. Our Croatian neighbors were never threatened. The Ustaše would have killed me with the rest of the women, but they had other uses for me first. I was beautiful then.”
Miloš reached out and gently placed his hand on her arm. “You are still beautiful, Marija,” he said as she slowly backed away.
“How did you escape?” Jamie asked.
Marija hesitated, so Miloš answered for her. “The men who ravished her left her for dead. Some Italian soldiers found her and cared for her.”
“I wanted them to let me die, but they didn’t speak Serbo-Croat.” She fingered her apron’s repaired hem for a few seconds, then abruptly dropped it. “I need to milk the goat.”
“You see,” Brajović said as Marija walked away. “The Croats in their village didn’t lift a finger to save their neighbors. The Serbs have no friends, only enemies. And a few allies who look the other way while we suffer. We can’t trust anyone else, not to free us, not to help us, and certainly not to rule us.”
Miloš followed Marija with his eyes. “Peter, you should go back inside.”
Peter didn’t argue. When Jamie called the other foreigners over to help take Peter indoors, Miloš went after Marija.
He found her in the shed with the goat, her jaw clenched and her hands working furiously. Miloš should have known it was a bad idea, should have stood up to the pukovnik when Brajović asked him to fetch Marija. “I’m sorry, Marija, for bringing up such horrible memories. It wasn’t my intention to open old wounds.”
She was quiet for a few seconds, still milking. “I’ll never forget what happened that day, Miloš. They needed to know, and I’m the only one who survived.” She hesitated, then continued. “I didn’t think you knew.”
“Your uncle told me. A long time ago.” Miloš rubbed the goat’s ears as Marija worked. He was surprised when she spoke again.
“How you can still want to marry me, knowing what those men did to me?”
“You did nothing wrong.”
Marija’s hands paused. When she spoke, her voice shook with emotion. “I should have thrown myself off the cliff with the others or run into their knives.”
“No, you did just what you should have done. You survived. And I’m glad you did. And if you ever agree to marry me, I swear I’ll do everything in my power to protect you so nothing like that happens to you ever again. I wish I could have been there that day. I would have helped.”
“If you’d been there, you’d have been shot with our fathers and our brothers and all the other men.”
“Is that why you hate me, Marija? Because I wasn’t there?”
Marija stood abruptly. “I don’t hate you, Miloš.”
“But you don’t love me either?”
Marija stared at the milk bucket. “I’d like to be alone, Miloš.”
“I’ll finish the goat for you.”
“Do you know how to milk a goat?” Her voice was more tense than usual.
“Phst. Of course.”
Marija left, and though Miloš watched her go, she didn’t look back.